Lately there’s been a lot of talk and some misinformation circulating about the Vancouver Skateboard Coalition and our stance in Vancouver’s municipal politics, in particular, our relation to Al DeGenova. If you care about things like that, read on…

It’s no secret that several Coalition members have supported Al publicly. We’d like to make clear that these people are speaking as individuals, not on behalf of the entire organization. And of course there’s the issue of the Coalition being treated to a table at the recent Vision Vancouver dinner, which also garnered some attention. Take, for example, this post by Frances Bula on the Vancouver Sun Blog, which, for my own amusement, I’ll review in third-person in the style of a film critic or other such media person:

Apparently blogger Frances Bula has something against the Vancouver Skateboard Coalition. In her overview of the Vision Vancouver dinner, not only is the Coalition the only organization whose name she refuses to capitalize, but her multiple references to them are made using several different names, none of which are correct. The resulting tone is subtly but clearly intentionally insulting.

Also interesting is her mention of an affiliation between the Coalition and the Roller Derby Girls; an arrangement that the Coalition itself seems to be unaware of. When contacted by phone, vice president Jeff Chan’s response to the issue was less than helpful, “well I know two girls who are into roller derby and one of them was at that dinner. Does that count?” President Michelle Pezel was then called at her store, Antisocial. Speaking above considerable background noise, she was abrupt. “What? Roller skates? We don’t sell roller skates. And I really have to go, I’m dealing with a shoe delivery right now.” Puzzling indeed. Is Frances Bula privy to some deep-inside information about the Vancouver Skateboard Coalition? Perhaps. But my bullshit detector is flashing “Violation 14.3 J”, which leads me to believe that she’s simply utilizing the Blogger’s Flexible Fact Postulate¹. This being the case, I’m going to have to sum up this example of “journalism” by borrowing one of Bula’s own choice words. “Whatever”.

But now I’ve gotten carried away. What I meant to do was clarify that the Vancouver Skateboard Coalition is a non-partisan organization and, therefore, has no official stance on the Vancouver mayoral race. Obviously we all appreciate what Al has done for skateboarding in Vancouver, but do we all support his bid for mayor? Some of us do. But some of us don’t, some of us haven’t decided, and there’s probably a few who won’t even bother to vote.